If the pharmacist’s mate tried to stop him by force, the man could. Genda didn’t have the physical strength to oppose him. But he had a blazing strength of will, and the bigger, healthier man gave way before him. I might as well be Japan against the United States, he thought, and headed for his battle station.
When he reached the bridge, Captain Tomeo Kaku took one look at him and snapped, “Go below.”
An order was an order. Dejectedly, Genda turned to go. “Wait,” Admiral Yamamoto told him. To Kaku, Yamamoto went on, “Genda-san is not as well as I wish he were. But the illness affects only his body. His mind remains what it always was, and it is keen enough that I think he will be valuable here.”
“As you wish, sir,” Kaku answered. Most Japanese officers would have left it there, especially when a godlike man like Yamamoto had spoken. But Akagi’s new skipper showed he had nerve, for he continued. “I was concerned for the commander’s well-being, sir. He would be safer down in sick bay.”
Yamamoto laughed raucously. “If we are hit, Captain, nothing and no one on this ship is safe. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?” He waited. With a small, sheepish smile, Kaku shook his head. “All right, then,” Yamamoto said. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” He moved aside half a pace to make room for Genda beside him. Genda bowed and took his place. Yamamoto barked a question at a signals officer: “Zuikaku and Shokaku are properly dispersed from us and from each other?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” the young lieutenant replied. “They are following your orders, just as you gave them.”
“Good.” Yamamoto turned the word into a satisfied grunt. “We won’t leave all our eggs in one basket for the Yankees.” For Genda’s benefit, he added, “They’ve grouped their carriers very close together. We have them all under attack, and we’ve struck a hard blow against at least one.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Genda said, wishing he could have had more to do with the operation under way. Before he could say anything else, the thunder of antiaircraft guns from the screening ships and, a moment later, from Akagi herself penetrated the steel and bulletproof glass armoring the carrier’s bridge.
“All ahead full,” Captain Kaku called down the speaking tube to the engine rooms. He stepped to the wheel. “I have the conn.”
Genda didn’t like Kaku as much as he’d liked Captain Hasegawa, whose outspokenness had got him sent back to Japan. No denying Kaku could handle a ship, though. Akagi was a converted battle-cruiser, but he handled her as if she were a destroyer, sending her twisting this way and that across the broad expanse of the Pacific.
None of which might matter even a sen’s worth. No matter how swift she was, no matter what kind of evasive action she took, Akagi was a tortoise when measured against the airplanes attacking her. Antiaircraft guns and, most of all, the Zeros overhead would have the biggest say in whether she lived or died.
Admiral Yamamoto folded his arms across his broad chest. “We’ve done our part,” he said. “We have put this force in a position where it can achieve victory. Now we rely on the brave young men we have trained to give it to us.”
“Yes, sir,” Genda said. Maybe I should have stayed below, he thought. What can I do up here? The fight will go as it goes, with me or without me.
A plane smashed into the Pacific, two or three hundred meters ahead of the Akagi. Genda couldn’t be sure whether it was American or Japanese. American, he thought, for after the column of seawater it kicked up subsided there was no flame floating on the ocean. As if to show the contrast, a Zero went into the sea a moment later. The stricken Japanese fighter lit its own brief funeral pyre.
“A second Yankee carrier under attack, sir,” the signals officer reported. “Heavy American resistance.”
“They need to make a coordinated attack,” Genda said: “torpedo planes and dive bombers together. That way, the enemy won’t be able to concentrate on any one group.”
“Send the message,” Yamamoto told the signals officer. “Send it in Genda’s name.”
“Sir?” the lieutenant said in surprise.
“I’m sure it’s not necessary, Admiral,” Genda said quickly. “Commander Fuchida will have given the same order—he knows all there is to know about these attacks.”
“Send it,” Yamamoto repeated. “The Americans already know where Akagi is—they’ve proved that. And Fuchida and everyone to whom he relays the message will be glad to hear Genda-san is on his feet.”
“Domo arigato,” Genda whispered, and punctuated the words with a couple of coughs.
“Torpedo in the water on the port side!” Captain Kaku was swinging the helm hard to port even before that alarmed cry rang out. Genda didn’t know whether he would have swung the carrier into the torpedo’s track or away from it. His specialties were air power and attack planning. He’d never been anything more than an ordinary ship-handler.
Tomeo Kaku was definitely out of the ordinary. He hesitated not even for an instant, wrenching Akagi around so she offered the torpedo the smallest possible target. Now Genda could see the wake, drawing closer with hideous inevitability. The track looked very straight—but the torpedo slid past, missing by no more than five or ten meters.
“Not bad, Captain.” For all the excitement in Yamamoto’s voice, he might have been talking about the soup course at a fancy dinner.
Two American torpedo planes went into the drink in quick succession, both before they could launch. The Yankees were still flying the hopelessly slow Douglas Devastators they’d used when the war broke out. The pilots in them were brave men. They had to be, because they attacked in flying death traps. The Devastator was far slower and less agile than the Nakajima B5N2. Like most American planes, it could take a lot of battle damage—but not as much as the Zeros and the ships’ antiaircraft guns were dishing out. Another torpedo plane crashed, and then another.
“I hope they haven’t drawn all the fighters down to the deck with them,” Genda said. “We’ll need some up high for top cover against dive bombers.”
“Send that, too,” Yamamoto told the signals officer. He gave Genda a smile. “You see? You are earning your keep. Thank you for coming up.”
“Thank you, sir,” Genda said. “I’m sure someone else would have thought of it if I hadn’t.”
Admiral Yamamoto shook his head. “I’m not. Too much going on in the heat of battle. People get excited pursuing the enemy and make mistakes. They get so caught up in the now, they forget what may happen five minutes further down the line.”
“Torpedo!” The cry rang out again. In spite of everything the Japanese could do, another Devastator had got a fish in the water.
“I’ll tend to it,” Captain Kaku said. Then he laughed. It was gallows humor, as he proved a moment later: “And if I don’t, you can tie me to the wheel, and I’ll go down with the ship.”
“That is not a good tradition,” Yamamoto said severely. “Not at all. The Empire loses brave, able men who could still serve it well.”
Kaku only shrugged. “You may be right, sir, but it’s a way for officers to atone for failure. Better than living in disgrace, neh?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but spun the wheel hard. Akagi answered the helm more slowly than a destroyer would have, but still turned into the path of the oncoming torpedo. As she swung that way, her new skipper let out a sigh of relief. “Track on this one’s not as straight as the last one was. She’ll miss us by plenty.” Plenty was about a hundred meters, or less than half the carrier’s length. Maybe Captain Kaku was trying to impress Yamamoto with his coolness, or maybe he really did have more than his fair share.
So far, so good, Genda thought. Then, in almost the same instant, he heard the shout he really dreaded: “Helldivers!”
MITSUO FUCHIDA’S B5B1 still had bombs left in the bomb bay. That kept him loitering over the battle above the American fleet in the hope of doing more harm. Actually, he wasn’t sure he or any of the other level bombers had done the Yankees any harm yet. He knew they’d scored near misses.
Hits? He shrugged in the cockpit. Moving targets were much tougher than ships tied up in a harbor.
Next time, it’ll be all torpedo planes and dive bombers, he thought with a twinge of regret. We’ll save the level bombers for shore installations.
“See anything behind us, Mizuki?” he called through the intercom. He checked six whenever he could, but Mizuki faced that way all the time.
“No, sir,” the radioman answered. “Pretty quiet up here. Not a lot of Wildcats left.”
He was right. Most of the fighters that had flown over the American fleet had gone into the Pacific. Too many Zeros and Japanese attack aircraft had gone down with them, though—too many skilled pilots, too. No one could say the Americans hadn’t fought hard. No one could say they weren’t brave, either. They’d done everything with their Wildcats anyone could imagine, and a little more besides.
And it hadn’t been enough. One of their aircraft carriers, smashed by torpedoes and bombs, had already sunk. Another lay dead in the water, burning from stem to stern. They were abandoning ship there. And the last enemy carrier had taken at least two bomb hits. Damage-control parties on that ship must have worked like fiends, for she wasn’t burning. But she wouldn’t be operating aircraft for quite a while, either, not with those holes in her flight deck she wouldn’t.
Two U.S. destroyers and a bigger ship—a cruiser or a battlewagon—had also taken damage. Fuchida was inclined to shrug them off. They were small change in a modern naval battle.
An Aichi dove on the surviving carrier. It got shot down before it could drop its bomb. Fuchida cursed. He spoke to his bombardier: “I’m going to make one last run at that ship myself. Give it what we have left.”
“Hai, Commander,” the bombardier answered. “I am ashamed not to have served my country and the Emperor better.”
“Don’t be,” Fuchida said. “You’ve done everything as best you could. War is a hard business, and we’re going to have to revise some of our doctrine. No shame, no blame. If there is blame, it goes to me for not flying the plane straighter.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much,” the bombardier said. “You’re kinder than I deserve.”
Fuchida concentrated on going straight over the surviving U.S. carrier. He had no more bombers following him; formations had broken down during the past wild. . . . He looked at his wristwatch. Could this fight have lasted only forty-five minutes? So the watch insisted. He couldn’t say it was wrong, but he felt as if he’d aged years.
“Ready there?” he called to the bombardier. “Coming up on the target.”
“Yes, sir. . . . Bombs free!”
The Nakajima rose as the bombs fell. With the whole bomb load and a lot of its fuel gone, it was as light and lively as it would ever be. “We’ve done everything we can do here,” Fuchida said. “Time to go home now.”
“Yes, sir,” the bombardier said again, and then, in sudden excitement, “Hit! That’s a hit!”
Was it? Fuchida had thought they’d made hits before, only to watch U.S. warships steam on, apparently undamaged. Why should it be any different here? Another look at his fuel gauge told him he didn’t really want to linger to find out.
He swung the B5N1 south. Japanese warplanes were leaving the battle by ones and twos and forming into larger groups as they flew: Aichis and Nakajimas protected by Zeros. Too many Japanese planes and pilots weren’t leaving the battle at all. But they’d done what they set out to do. Without air cover, the Yankees couldn’t possibly hope to invade Hawaii. And their air cover was smashed to smithereens.
Then another question occurred to him. How were his side’s carriers faring?
THE FIRST DIVE bombers called Helldivers had been biplanes. A movie about them was one of the things that interested the Japanese in the technique. Not least because of the film, Japanese Navy men still often called any dive bomber a Helldiver. Only in nightmares had Minoru Genda ever imagined Helldivers screaming down on a ship in which he served.
A bomb burst just off to port. The great gout of water it threw up drenched everyone on the bridge. It soaked Genda’s masuku, too. He took the worthless cloth thing off and threw it away. An ensign was rubbing at Admiral Yamamoto’s dress uniform with a towel. Yamamoto shoved the youngster away, saying, “Never mind. I don’t have to be pretty to fight a war.”
Engine roaring, the dive bomber streaked away just above wavetop height. Two Zeros pursued it. They quickly shot it down, but it had already done what it set out to do.
Captain Kaku swung Akagi hard to port. Someone on the bridge made a questioning noise. Kaku said, “They will expect me to turn away from the bomb burst, so I will turn towards it. Maybe I will throw off their aim.”
No one else said a word, not even Yamamoto. Kaku was Akagi’s skipper; how she was handled rested on his shoulders. And when a bomb burst to starboard, even closer than the first one had to port, everybody cheered. An explosion so close was liable to damage the hull, but the carrier’s crew could repair wounds like that at their leisure.
“Sir, Zuikaku is hit!” the signals officer reported to Yamamoto. “Two bombs through the flight deck—major damage.”
Before Yamamoto could answer, another American dive bomber stooped on Akagi. Captain Kaku was already swinging the carrier toward the last burst.
Maybe the American pilot guessed with him this time. Maybe his luck just ran out. Either way, the bomb hit the carrier a few meters ahead of the forwardmost elevator. Deck planking, jagged chunks of the steel beneath it, and flight-crew men all flew through the air.
Genda braced for yet another bomb, but no more came. A plane crashed into the sea not far from the wounded Akagi. Genda thought it was a dive bomber, but he couldn’t be sure. Flight-crew men dragged hoses across the deck toward the hole in the ship. Down below, damage-control parties would be doing what they could to restore and repair.
“Can we land planes?” the signals officer asked. “Our strike force is coming home.”
“We can land them,” Genda said. “I wouldn’t want to try to launch, but we can land—if we don’t get hit again, that is.”
He cast a wary eye up to the heavens, but it seemed as if no more dive bombers would come roaring down on the Akagi. He dared hope not, anyhow. And then word came from the flight deck: the surviving American planes were flying north. Genda wondered where they would land with two of their carriers destroyed and the third crippled. Maybe they would ditch in the Pacific, as the crews from the B-25s had done. That would save some of the fliers, even if the planes were lost.
He looked out at the flight-crew men and damage-control parties working on Akagi. He thought of the pounding Zuikaku had taken. And he thought of what the Japanese strike force had done to the American carriers. Turning to Admiral Yamamoto, he said, “Sir, this fight reminds me too much of a duel of submachine guns at three paces.”
Somber pride in his voice, Captain Kaku said, “Maybe so, but we had the better gunners today.”
“Today, yes,” Yamamoto said. But it wasn’t quite agreement, for he went on, “What will the Americans throw at us the next time? What will we have to answer?”
SABURO SHINDO WASN’T sure how many Wildcats he’d shot down. Three, he thought, but it might have been two or four or maybe, if he was very lucky, even five. All knew was, his Zero still flew, and some Americans didn’t.
Quite a few Japanese didn’t, either. Nothing had come cheap today. The Americans had fought ferociously. They’d fought ferociously—and they’d lost. What Japan had paid was worth the price. The invasion fleet behind the carriers, wherever it was, would come no farther. Shindo was sure of that. Without air superiority, trying a landing on Oahu was an invitation to suicide.
“Attention! Attention!” A radio alert blared in his earphones. “Planes from Zuikaku, divert to Shokaku or Akagi! Attention! Attention! Planes from Zuikaku, divert to Shokaku or Akagi!”
“Zakennayo!” he muttered. So the Yankees’ strike force had done damage, too. That was . . . unfortunat
e. The Americans might be—were—clumsy and none too skillful, but they’d given it everything they had. Not enough, though. They had no carriers left that could land planes, while Japan still had two.
If all the Japanese planes from the strike force had come home safely, Akagi and Shokaku wouldn’t have been able to accommodate them. As things were, that wouldn’t be a problem.
And here came the survivors from the U.S. attack, heading north toward who could say what? They were scattered all over the sky. Shindo saw enemy fighters and dive bombers—no torpedo planes. Had the defenders knocked down all of them? He wouldn’t have been surprised; the Devastator couldn’t get out of its own way.
Shindo dove on a dive bomber. He didn’t think the Douglas Dauntless’ pilot saw him till he opened fire, and maybe not even then. The American plane never tried to take evasive action. It heeled to the right and arced down into the sea.
One more small victory. Shindo flew on towards Akagi.
WHILE MITSUO FUCHIDA was in combat, he’d—mostly—forgotten about the ache in the right side of his belly. He couldn’t ignore it any more. It felt as if an angry dragon had sunk its teeth in there and didn’t want to let go.
I have one thing left to do, he told himself. I have to get this plane down. My radioman and my bombardier are depending on me. After that . . . After that, he intended to head for sick bay as fast as he could go. Genda and me, he thought. We’re two of a kind. He wondered how his friend was doing.
His first glimpse of Akagi came as a shock. Because she was landing planes, he’d assumed she’d come through the American attack unscathed. Now he found out what such assumptions were worth. Had that bomb struck near the stern instead of at the bow, the whole strike force would have been trying to come down on Shokaku—and wouldn’t that have been a lovely mess?
A Zero landed on Akagi. Fuchida circled, waiting his turn and watching the fuel gauge. He was low, but not too low. He could last long enough—he hoped. An Aichi dive bomber followed the fighter down. Men from the flight crew hustled to get each new arrival off to one side and clear the flight deck for the next. Another Zero landed. Was that Lieutenant Shindo’s plane? Fuchida thought so, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of anything except how much he hurt—and that his turn came next.
Days of Infamy Page 53
